Church of Satan

The Church of Satan is a Satanist new religious movement which was founded on 30 April 1966 by Anton LaVey in San Francisco, California. The church's sacred text is The Satanic Bible, and, unlike Christianity and Islam, the church does not believe in the Devil or their notion of Satan, instead embracing the root of the Hebrrew word "Satan", meaning "adversary", and claiming to be "skeptical atheists". The church viewes Satan as a positive archetype which embodies pride, individualism, and enlightenment, as well as a symbol of defiance against the Abrahamic faiths, which LaVey saw as attempting to suppress humanity's natural instincts.